Muscat: With the start of the Centre for Food Safety and Quality’s operation in the Wilayat of Salalah, food safety has taken a step forward in Oman’s leading tourist destination.

The Centre will make sure the food produced and circulated in the area is safe to consume, and it will continuously test food to ensure its quality in special labs. The Centre will also handle complaints from consumers regarding food that they bought and suspect it as not safe for human consumption, replacing the direct role of local municipalities and the Public Authority for Consumer Protection (PACP) in protecting consumers from unsafe food in Oman.

A statement from the Ministry of Regional Municipalities and Water Resources read: “MRMWR, represented by the centre for food safety and quality, has begun to take over all food-related operations from Dhofar Municipality, therefore working to execute Royal Decree 24/2019 regarding the Centre’s creation.

“The Centre is responsible for unifying all efforts in a way that can support ensuring the safety of food and its quality,” the statement added. An official from the Ministry of Regional Municipalities told Times of Oman: “The Centre has started operating in Dhofar. It’s responsible for testing food samples in labs, handling complaints, and working to discover food-related violations on a high technical standard.

“This means that it isn’t the PACP who will handle complaints if, say, people enter a coffeeshop and find food that has an issue. They would file their complaint to the Centre.

“This has happened in Salalah, but it will be some time until it occurs in other governorates and I cannot give you an exact timeframe for when it will be completed in every governorate in Oman.” Despite the royal decree’s announcement in March this year, consumers are still contacting PACP regarding their food safety complaints and concerns.

The PACP deals with these cases by telling the consumers that as per the Royal Decree, they should direct their queries to the Centre or their respective municipality, as the PACP does not handle food quality complaints any longer.